The end of the Cold War crucially changed the way in which the world is organised and brought an end to what is referred to as the “old” regionalism. A trend towards some form of “new” regionalism has thus been observed during the 1990s. The objective of this thesis is therefore, firstly, to outline the characteristics of the new regionalism in order to examine to what extent the phenomenon is reflected in the reality of regional organisations, and, secondly, to establish which model of co-operation the same organisations can be said to follow. Following this idea, a comparative case study is performed with the selected cases of NAFTA and MERCOSUR, on which a theoretical model for analysis is applied in order to establish whether theories of International Relations, in this case Liberalism and Realism, can explain the emergence and existence of both organisations.

Results show that NAFTA is less inclined to show signs of the trend towards the new regionalism than MERCOSUR does, and that NAFTA to a larger extent follows a realist model of co-operation, while MERCOSUR follows a more liberal model of co-operation.

Humanitarian intervention is a concept that generates several problems in our time. The idea of humanitarian intervention concerns the modern norms of sovereignty and noninterventional principals. It also concerns the conventional norm, which declares that states are not allowed to interfere in other states’ internal affairs. The use of military force to implement humanitarian intervention is restricted according to international law. This is what this thesis intends to investigate. The purpose was to find out the causes behind the intervention in Libya, which was carried out by NATO. The main questions were (1) to find out if the intervention in Libya was a humanitarian intervention (2) or if there were other motives that were behind the intervention. Two classical international relations theories have been utilized for the analysis. The analysis focused on the five UN Security Council members’ statements and arguments, which have been expressed in the UN Security Council. This issue created a gap between the members of the Security Council, especially between the Western states and the Russian and Chinese authorities

Scholarly findings suggest that immigrants in Western countries, in general, participate less in politics and show lower levels of political efficacy than native-born citizens. Research is scarce, however, when it comes to immigrants’ knowledge about politics and public affairs in their new home country, and what happens with this knowledge over the years. This article focuses on immigrants in Sweden, a country known for ambitious multicultural policies, but where immigrants also face disadvantages in areas such as labor and housing markets. Utilizing particularly suitable survey data we find that immigrants, in general, know less about Swedish politics than natives, but also that this difference disappears with time. Exploring the influence of time of residence on political knowledge, the article shows that the positive effect of time in Sweden among immigrants remains after controlling for an extensive set of background factors. Moreover, the article examines this political learning effect through the lens of an Ability–Motivation–Opportunity (AMO) model. The findings suggest that the development of an actual ability to learn about Swedish politics—via education in Sweden, and by improved Swedish language skills—is an especially important explanation for the increase in political knowledge.

Political trust among immigrants in Western Europe seems to be surprisingly high, especially among immigrants from non-democratic countries with institutions plagued by corruption. Over time, however, trust tends to diminish among these individuals. In this paper we argue that this may neither be explained by acculturation nor by experiences of discrimination. Analysing Swedish survey data we instead conclude, although tentatively, that falling expectations regarding the performance of host country institutions is a fruitful explanation. Such expectations presumably become more modest the longer one has been living in Sweden, causing a time-related drop in the overall confidence in Swedish political institutions.

Recent studies report high levels of political trust among immigrants in Western Europe. Notably, such confidence tend to be particularly pronounced among immigrants from countries without democratic institutions and poor records in terms of corruption level. Yet over time, members of these population categories tend to express decreasing levels of political trust. Following previous research, such a pattern may be explained by high initial—although with time retreating—expectations concerning the quality of institutions in Western Europe. Analyzing Swedish survey data—particularly appropriate in the light of competing hypotheses concerning acculturation and barriers to integration, including discrimination—this paper presents additional support for the importance of expectations when it comes to political trust. Our analyses suggest that the gradual development of more modest expectations regarding institutional performance in the new country is a trustworthy explanation of the falling levels of immigrants‘ political trust.

This paper empirically evaluates the idea that individual level political tolerance is influenced by the overall tolerance in a given society. The expectation is that more tolerant attitudes would be developed as a consequence of exposure to a social environment in which people in general are more inclined to accept freedom of speech, also when a specific message challenges one’s own values and beliefs. A theoretical learning model is formulated, according to which more broad-minded and permissive attitudes, from a democratic point of view, are adopted as a result of (1) an adjustment stimulated by mere observation of an overall high-level of political tolerance in society (‘passive learning’), and (2) an adjustment due to cognition and interaction within important spheres in society (‘active learning’). Using survey data, we explore empirically how length of residence among immigrants in the high-tolerance country of Sweden is related to measures of political tolerance. Further, we examine to what extent a time-related effect is mediated through participation in a set of ‘learning institutions’—focusing on activities related to education, working-life, civil society and political involvement. In concert with expectations, the empirical findings suggest that a positive effect of time in Sweden on political tolerance may be explained by a gradual adoption of the principle that political rights should be recognized. Importantly, however, such an adoption seems to require participation in activities of learning institutions, as we find that passive learning in itself is not sufficient.

In order to have some say and to scrutinise the government all member states of the EU today has established an institution within their national parliaments, the Committee of European Affairs. This institution, however, has very different rights and regulations depending on the country it is established in. This study uses two rather similar countries, Sweden and Denmark, and investigates what differences and similarities the two committees show.

By constructing a comparative case study of four units of analysis, the governments and committees of European Affairs in Sweden and Denmark, the formal and informal power relationship between government and committee in each country were studied in order to determine similarities and differences and whether the committee had an impact on the governments’ EU policies. Further they were compared, assessing whether the Danish Committee of European Affairs was more powerful than its Swedish counterpart because of its legal basis in an EU document.

The theoretical framework was built on empirical institutionalism and Lukes’ first and second dimension of power. The similarities and differences were accounted for and compared. In conclusion, the Danish Committee of European Affairs has more formal power than its Swedish counterpart but regarding informal power the Swedish Committee of European Affairs has a slight advantage. Both committees have an impact on the way their government handle negotiations with the EU.

This study aims to examine the EU’s normative power through the Common Commercial Policy (CCP) before and after the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force. The study is a comparative study and was carried out through a document study of official documents and treaties. To pursue the aim the following questions were asked: What are the differences and similarities within the EU's common trade policy before and after the introduction of the Treaty of Lisbon and does the Treaty of Lisbon increased the normative ambition of the EU?

In this study Ian Manners theory Normative Power Europe has been categorized into direct normative actions and indirect normative actions. The empirical material is based on literature, primary document, Official Journal of the European Union and EU: s webpage.

The conclusions of this study show that the Treaty of Lisbon has changed the constitutional basis for the common commercial policy in several ways. The CCP has more room after the Treaty of Lisbon to develop and take on direct normative actions. The major difference is that the CCP now endorse all the Union’s objectives, principles and values which give the CCP more opportunities to set normative requirements and gain normative power.

The purpose with this study is to investigate, scrutinize and to understand the current political situation in Ukraine and why it has not been progressed. The disastrous democratic process and the country´s existing and indefatigable problems are studied through dynamics that deals with the country’s ethnic divisions and the conflict with Russia regarding several regions in Ukraine. In this paper, a case study is used as the method, and by applying Anna Jarstads dilemmas of democracy process and Arend Lijpharts Consociational democracy is as well, the investigation shows that this system of democracy model can be successful Ukraine if they take regards to Anna Jarstads four dilemmas. The conclusion of this study means that it is important to take regards into the dilemmas of democracy and therefore must be regarded to when a country is trying to build a state based on democracy and that no improvement can be done without it. And the process of democracy should take impression of the Consociational democracy model, otherwise it´s more likely that the political volatility will remain and further increase.

This chapter is based on a survey of Swedish and international police research. A fundamental task in police work is discussed: dealing with dilemmas. These have to be handled in a judiciously way by the police officers, as there are no absolute answers to the question of how to act in various situations. The reasoning is linked to questions about multi-functional organizations and competence.

If we have to document our professional action, will we then only perform the actions that we are supposed to document? This question reflects the content of this chapter. The chapter includes a frame of reference for studying control of professionals in organizations and illustration on different types of professional controls.

The aim of this study is to examine the democratization process of Kosovo in the years after the countries independence was assured. Two central questions for the case study consist of whether a democratic improvement in the country has occurred and which factors, positive and negative, are present to further improve or impede the democratizationprocess. The study builds upon two central definitions, democratic states and democratization in order to gain theoretical background to be able to measure these two quite abstract expressions. A socioeconomic model is used to measure favorable or negative developments within Kosovos society and the findings of this model confirms the hypothesis of modernization theory, namely that increased socioeconomic development increases the chance of a positive democratizationprocess. There has been a positive democratic development aswell as socioecomic progress but since the nature of this study is merely descriptive and not explanatory, it doesnt make claims on the explanatory power of modernization theory. A transition model is used for gaining a general overview of where in the democratizationprocess Kosovo currently resides. The findings of this model suggests that Kosovo currently sits in the transitionsphase of the model with problems like corruption and ethnical conflicts between minorities aswell as gender inequality as the main forces holding back the quality aspect of the consolidationphase.

The purpose of this essay is to describe the organization of the Swedish Animal WelfareAgency during the time it was in operation. The Swedish Animal Welfare Agency was established in 2005 by the government who saw it as necessary in order to strengthen the protection of cruelty to animals in Sweden. However, the agency was shut down already in2007 and its responsibilities as an agency was moved back to the government and the department of agriculture. During its time in operation, the Swedish Animal Welfare Agency, received much criticism, among other things because of its interpretations of the law which were seen as too focused on details and thus “bureaucratic”. In order to describe the organization of the agency the theoretical approach of this study is based on three of Bo Rothstein’s ideal administration models; the legal bureaucratic, thepolitical oriented and the user oriented model. The purpose is to see which one of these ideal administrations the Swedish Animal Welfare Agency was most like, through an organizational perspective. There will also be a comparison over time, from the establishing to the shutting down of the agency in order to see if the organization of the agency had changed over time. The method used for this paper is a qualitative text-based analysis where the central arguments concerning the organization of the agency will be highlighted and interpreted from the different criteria of the administration models. The study showed that the organization of the Swedish Animal Welfare Agency can be described as a legal bureaucratic administration. The comparison over time showed that the organization of the agency did not change, it could be described as legal bureaucratic when it was established as well as when it was shut down. This shows that the criticism of the agency of being too “bureaucratic” might be justified but the legitimacy of the agency’s organization was based on bureaucratic principles.

Very much of the knowledge about patients nursing and care is located to the the patient or people related to the patient. The Swedish government has identified this problem in a national rapport and every region is responsible to implement a strategy or model to increase participation from affected patients. The Region of Kalmar county has a model for this problem called Utvecklingsrådet. By using a qualitative text analysis with framing theory and argumentative analysis approach towards the implementer process of Region of Kalmar county´s model this paper will exam how well this model has succeeded.

Utvecklingsrådet has grown to the extent that patients and relatives to patients is contributing in different management contexts and development work directly in the organizations. By the structure of utvecklingsrådet patients and relatives to patients contribute due to what the Swedish government asked for in the national report.

The objective of the thesis is to explore if the European Union membership has changed the Swedish Green Party’s use of parlance, ideology and political content. To explore this, a quantitative content analysis has been done on election manifestos during a 30-year period on national parliamentary manifestos as well as European Parliament manifestos. A framework of green ideology as well as previous research of the Swedish Green’s is used to further the findings from the manifestos.

The thesis has found that the European Union membership has affected the Swedish Greens which is seen in the change of how they use language, their transformation of ideas throughout the years as well as their views on political areas and how that has expanded.

Further research is recommended to additionally explore the subject, a suggestion is to increase the material because that was an issue in this essay.

The discussion about the refugees in Europe has never before been as important to address as now. We rely on our decision-makers to call the right shots for the people in need. So what do we do, if we do not believe that they make the right decisions?

In March 2016, the European Union made a deal with Turkey to outsource the handling of the refugee-crisis. The EU will pay large amounts of money and grant visa liberation for the Turks, in exchange for them taking care of the refugees so they don’t cross the EU borders. The deal has been questioned by many and it criticized for being illegal and violating human rights. But it is still in effect.

This study aims to detect the motives of the EU-leaders that led to the deal and subsequently with the motives detect what kind of decision-process that made the decision possible. The study conducts a motive analysis, based on Axel Hadenius theory of hermeneutics. To conclude, the study will use the critics aimed at the deal to discover whether there is a gap between the stated motivations of the EU-leaders, and the result that the deal brings when implemented.

This essay is a comparative study between Botswana och Zimbabwe. The author presents the four internal democratication factors which are: economic development, free values,authotarian divisions and the civil society. These factors are presented and applied to each country. Zimbabwe is a authotarian regime and Botswana is a democractic regime. Which of the factors influences the democratization process? The author found that it is the economic development. Industrialized countries are more prone to be democratic than poor countries.

This paper is designed to analyse the situation regarding the attempt to implement democracy in Egypt and why it failed. Theories regarding democratic transition and consolidation is acting as scientific instruments to carry out this case study. This essay directs its focus on several key factors that has contributed to the prevention of democratic reforms. The theory concerning path dependence is used to compliment the remaining theories to distinguish vital historic aspects to this issue. Key factors such as the Muslim brotherhood, the Egyptian military and regime, as well as the liberal movement is examined in this paper to illuminate their respective contribution to this situation.

The conclusion of this paper focuses on the military, unwilling to surrender its power, along with the religiously fundamental brotherhood, growing rapidly. A democratic transition was in the making, only to be shut down by the military, regaining its former power. Although chaotic and military-biased reforms continued, they were far from democratic. Because of all the key factors not sharing any political ideals, the situation has come to an abrupt halt regarding a democratisation process. The democratic ideal has become worn among the protestors and another try at a democratic transition is far from reality.

The question regarding the democratic deficit has been a heavily debated issue for decades and is still present in contemporary literature. In the light of Brexit and the increase of Euroscepticism around the continent, the question regarding democracy is essential for the European union to obtain legitimacy. This essay aims to address the democratic deficit as a concept, the Lisbon treaty’s efforts to reduce the democratic deficit, and finally, examine if the democratic deficit has been reduced as a result to the implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon. The study identifies the issue regarding the democratic deficit in five major subjects; demos, integration, participation, transparency and accountability. Many of the efforts helps reducing the deficit in some regards, but never to a full extent. The ordinary legislative procedure, the citizen’s initiative, the of granting more power to national parliaments, more transparency and assuring protection of human rights by law makes the EU more democratic, but not fully. The issue regarding accountability, participation and especially transparency remains a problem, despite the Treaty of Lisbon’s efforts. This study shows that some parts of the EU simply can’t be made more democratic.

Studies about the consolidation process in the post- Soviet era has become more popular since the countries gained their independence, one of them was Azerbaijan. However, the country has difficulties in consolidating democracy since it regained its independence. The mail goal of this study is to find out why the democratization process in Azerbaijan have faltered and the main factors behind it. Such as the role of the electoral process, civil society, and the constitutional state. This qualitative case study will mainly rely on material from Freedom House Index report & Nations in Transit. The theories that will be used in this study is Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan's theories "Towards consolidated democracies". They argue that in order to achieve a consolidated democracy there has to be a functioning political society, active civil society and a constitutional state. To strengthen the main theory in this study, we will rely on Robert Dahls five criterions that are needed in order to achieve a democracy. Results show that main factors behind Azerbaijan's faltering democratization is a relatively weak opposition, fragmented civil society and a legislative body that is not independent. Other main reasons for the faltering of democracy is high institutionalized corruption on every level of society

This thesis is based on a case study of Tanzanian youths’ political participation in urban Mwanza. The purpose of this study is to examine how urban youths understand their participation in various political activities in an emerging democracy like Tanzania. The research question guiding the study is how youths understand and value voting in elections in comparison to other forms of political participation. The study focuses on three different political activities; to vote, to contact a politician and to participate in a demonstration. The three political activities are combined with Verba et al.’s (1995) theory of the attributes of political activities into a theoretical analysis model. The thesis uses a qualitative methodology based on 19 semi-structured interviews with Tanzanian youths living in urban Mwanza. The results indicated that the youths in Mwanza understood voting as their prime opportunity to communicate their political voices to politicians. However, the youths expressed that political activities beyond voting facilitate them with opportunities to communicate more specific political messages to politicians multiple times.

With varied electoral success for anti-immigration parties across Western Europe, Sweden is often held as an example where anti-immigration parties have been less successful. This have caught the interest of many scientists around the world and have recently developed theories on a subnational level when testing Sweden’s municipalities, on why they have failed here but not in other countries. But in the election to 2010, Sweden now joins the rest of the Western-European countries in having an anti-immigrations party in the parliament.

This paper has tested three theories on a Municipality that has shown evident support for the Sweden democrats, both in the local and the national election. This is done with a qualitative approach, made up from interviews with the local established parties. Results show that the success of the Sweden democrats are not explained by the local presence in the city council, where they make no real impressions and rarely, or never, turns in propositions. There is also no real support for the theory that the established parties issue strategy has an effect on the success or failure for the anti-immigration party.

This study deals with Swedish newspapers' portrayals of the Treaty which establishes a Constitution for Europe, which then influenced Swedish newspaper readers. This study connects the areas of both media and politics. What the media states can be expected to shape

public opinion, especially when it comes to foreign policy issues. In order to fullfill the aim of the study, I have constructed two problems which I have answered to in accordance with my data, theoretical framework and research method. My data consists of articles from the largest Swedish morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter. The theoretical framework of this study is a combination of political science, media- and communication science and behaviour science. I have utilized two research methods in this study; a qualitative analysis of content, which transcends into different categories, and a method of quantification of the main actors in the

articles. One of the results that I have discovered in this study is that the image of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe offered to the readers is a fairly positive one.

Since the 1990s the support for the populist radical right parties has steadily increased. This essay investigates if there is a common policy preference among this party-family that makes them successful, irrespective of each party’s national belonging. This is achieved by utilising a time-series cross-sectional data from the Comparative Manifesto Project. These data range between 1990-2018 and includes 13 different West-European countries. Five different hypotheses containing different policy preferences are tested through multiple regression analysis. The essay concludes that the previously commonly accepted winning formula containing a positive view on welfare, emphasis on authoritarian values and nativism does not hold up. Furthermore, the essay concludes that national context has a decisive role of which policy preference is successful. The common successful policy preference among the populist radical right is their promotion of authoritarian values together with an emphasis on eliminating political corruption and clientelist behaviour (populism). This is explained by societal value changes with major clashing groups in the society, making the authoritarian values a successful policy preference irrespective of national context.

It is a human right to be treated equally and fairly no matter whom you are, what you like or where you are from. The United Nations addressed the important aspects of equally treatment in their declaration of the human rights. It is each conventions state’s responsibility to fulfil all the rights in the declaration. This study focuses on three Swedish county administrative organizational works with the human rights from their annual reports from 2014. The purpose of this study was to clarify each county administrative work with the human rights from an implementation perspective, and educe improvement potentials.

The method which is used in this essay is a comparative study of the three organizations with a text analysis of their annual reports and a national report. This means that they initially were analysed separately and then compared in the end of the analysis. Factors such as the integration of the human rights and methods are of great importance in the presentation of each county administrative work. It is the government who is ultimately responsible for the human rights and that they are observed and worked with. To facilitate the work on a regional basis, the government have delegated the responsibility to the county administrative. Their main task is to ensure that the human rights-perspective is anchored in the organisation and that they work with the rights externally as well. The analysis compared the county administrative for what they have accomplished during the year, regardless of their geographical size and population. The results show that there are several steps left for the county administrative to use in their future work with the implementation of the human rights.

Youth organizations in Sweden try to be a reliable part in the political agenda, to change and improve how the politics affect youths. This study aims to clarify how four different youth organizations work with their political questions: from hbtq-perspective and children’s rights to the right to hearing-aid and involvement in questions regarding youths. The method used for the study was both a comparative study of how the organizations work to improve and change the Swedish political agenda for the better, and interviews with the chairpersons of the four youth organizations for a bigger transparency in their methods.

The results of this study are that there aren’t any strategy or method to affect and change how the political agenda works. Even though each of the four organizations are successful within their own area of expertise, it’s not always possible to apply the same methods on another organization with another structure.

This essay aims to explore the difference in the political system between the Ukrainian regime in the period 2010-2014 and the regime that emerged out of the euromaidan protests in 2014. Through this the essay will determine if there has been any democratical progress between both of the timelines and if any of the periods achieved the status of democracy. Democracy is defined as polyarchy which gives a clear structure to study both periods and compare them to the criteria’s that this type of democracy offers. The areas that will be studied are: Free and Fair Elections, Universal Suffrage, Elected Representatives, the Right to Candidate in Elections, the Right to Organize, Freedom of Speech and Alternative Sources of Information. The essay is a Theory Consuming Case Study with both descriptive questions and a descriptive approach to answer the questions. The framework that is used to analyze the information is of a qualitative nature. This essay concludes that both periods have had large democratic problems. Although the problems for both periods differ, in the first problem there are several events with rigged elections, crime against journalists and restraints of freedom of speech. The second period saw several improvements in several areas but issues with universal suffrage emerged. This caused both periods to not being able to fulfill the criteria’s of polyarchy which, in this study, is the benchmark for a democracy. Instead, both periods achieved the criteria’s for a hybrid regime which in many ways are equivalent of a flawed democracy.

This thesis examines how the president of the EU-Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, is using rhetorical figures in his annual State of The Union speech to describe certain situation and enhance their message. With a qualitative idea analysis together with a rhetorical analysis and Richard Vatz theory about the rhetorical situation, the study analyses four speeches made by Juncker at the European Parliament. The results show how Juncker describes certain situations to favour his own political agenda – a more united EU. The situations are often portrayed in a negative and pessimistic manner. To give these descriptions a better effect he uses a set of different rhetorical figures. The figures help in particular with repeating the importance of a specific message and to illustrate it and explain it better for the audience.

In this minor thesis I describe and analyze Irish rock star Bono’s social, humanitarian and political commitment using a qualitative method of analysis (literature studies) and a broad theoretical framework. The study discusses such concepts as “agenda setting”, “soft power” and “charismatic authority”, as well as the power resources of the celebrity and the power of the media.

The aim of the study has been 1) to see if Bono’s commitment has influenced/influences politics and policies, 2) to describe and analyze Bono’s commitment with the focus on what issues he has supported and worked for, 3) to describe his approach, and 4) to see if one can trace any concrete or measurable results that can be linked to Bono personally.

More specifically, the study sets out to answer the following research questions:

When was the start of Bono’s commitment? How has it changed or evolved throughout the years? What issues and organisations has he supported and worked for, and in what way?

What do the political elites, the economical and academic institutions, the media and the NGO’s say about Bono’s commitment? And last but not least: Is it possible to ”measure” the results of this commitment ?

The findings show that Bono’s commitment has indeed mattered politically, even though it still, as often the case with qualitative research methods, remains uncertain as to exactly what degree - because of difficulties involved in the process of measuring. What can be concluded, though, is that Bono personally, thanks to his status in the music business and his charismatic authority, as a single actor and as part of a context, structure or network (e.g. Jubilee 2000, DATA), has inspired and empowered individual human beings as well as influenced politics and policies on the national and international level (strengthened NGO or citizen initiatives by providing the sought-after media exposure and persuaded/lobbied politicians to change their positions on for example debt relief).

This thesis aims to examine when democratic consolidation took place in Costa Rica from a maximalistic perspective. The hypothesis is that it’s likely that the democracy was not consolidated as early as 1953 which would be the case if applying a minimalistic perspective. Linz and Stepan’s theory about democratic consolidation has been chosen as the theoretical framework of the thesis and the research has been conducted by using a qualitative text analysis. The thesis comes to the conclusion that Costa Rica’s democracy completed its consolidation 1978 when the previously banned communist party Partido Vanguardia Popular was allowed to compete for votes again in the 1978’s presidential and parliamentary elections. From that point no party was excluded from taking part in free and fair elections.

Sweden has traditionally viewed Soviet Union and Russia as a potential threat. The Sweden Defense commission regularly presents reports with international monitoring to the Swedish Defense department concerning the security landscape and development. The analysis by the Defense commission drew conclusions in 2007 pointing to a Russia not moving towards military activity. Georgia and Ukraine proves the opposite. This bachelor thesis examines if the global analysis by the Swedish Defense commission have seen a change as a result of the Russian actions in Ukraine. The bachelor thesis has in its case study analysed the content of three reports from the Defense commission from perspectives based on liberalism and realism. From the results, it is identified that the analysis produced by the Swedish Defense commission has differed to a very small extent in its recommendations from both before, and after the annexation of Crimea. Rather than seeing any change, this thesis has strengthened the presumption that Swedish foreign- and security policy has a strong position of global cooperation both in and outside the European Union and keeps its position of advocating for international commitments, although national defense has gained a greater priority on the Swedish agenda.

The purpose of this study is to illustrate why Norway is not a member of the EU from a rational choice perspective. In order to fulfil this purpose, two questions will constitute the framework of the study. These are:

1. What are the arguments of the EU-opposers in the Norwegian EU-debate?

2. Is it rational for Norway to stand outside the EU?

The first question was answered by analyzing and mapping out the arguments of the Norweigan EU-opponents and then using a critical literature study to analyse them. To demarcate the study, only the arguments of the parliamentary parties that are opposing a Norwegian EU-membership, and the official organisation Nei til EU (No to the EU) were included. The second question was tested by using a rational choice theory and a number of keywords from the classical rational actor model; objectives, alternatives, consequences and choice. These keywords constituted the main analyzing instrument of the study and was applied on the empirical material.

The main arguments of the opposers of a Norweigan EU-membership, are widely spoken democracy, freedom of action, environment and solidarity. The debate is hard to map out because of its general character but is very homogeneous. The second question is answered partly in the light of the first one and the result shows that it is rational for Norway to stay outside the EU today, but the question may have to be reassessed in the future, and probably will be since the debate is still so fervent.

Statistics from Freedom House show that 2018 is the thirteenth consecutive year with democratic decline. This paper examines underlying causes to this democratic decline. This is done through literature review of current research in the field of democracy development. By using descriptive idea analysis of selected research literature, the paper aims to clarify the current debate on the challenges of democracy. The study somewhat supports that long-term liberal democracy creates conditions that potentially cause its own retreat. This is because long-term liberal democracy provides peace and growth, which is unequally distributed in society and leads to increased social divisions. As a result, large groups of people no longer feel included in society, which in turn will pave the way for populist movements and potential autocratic leaders. The study also somewhat supports that there has been a weakening in the functioning of the democratic institutions to act as gatekeepers, keeping potential autocrats out of power. Increased democracy and transparency in the democratic processes has made it easier for potential autocrats to come to power. All in all, there is some support for the hypothesis of the essay: The more democracy the greater the risk that the democratic system will weaken.

This study aims to provide answers to whether the politics of the Swedish Democrats contains elements of xenophobia. The Swedish Democrats have become a major political party in Sweden. Today they are the Swedish parliament's third largest political party. Due to an ambition to grow as a party even more, the Swedish Democrats have a stated ambition of zero tolerance against racists. Nevertheless, the party has continued to build its policy on an immigration-critical agenda. Other parliamentary parties have so far not wanted to cooperate with the Swedish Democrats with reference to the party's xenophobic policy. However, if the Swedish Democrats continue to grow in size as a party, it will become increasingly difficult for other parties to continue ignoring the party's influence in the Swedish parliament.

The study has consisted of rhetorical analysis of the Swedish Democrats party platforms from the party's formation until today. This analysis shows that the image the party gives of itself in the party platform has not changed significantly since the party was formed. However, the latest party platform of the Swedish Democrats includes more features of xenophobia than their first party program did. The policy of the Sweden Democrats thus still contains xenophobic elements.